Over the years we have developed relationships with many great suppliers who provide us with discounted prices on new, second hand and refurbished parts. That gives us a lot of flexibility to help you choose a repair or upgrade solutions to suit your budget.

Help Me Dave can help with any Laptop or Computer Repair

We’ll always chat to our clients about what will give the best value for money – because there are times when replacing the laptop or computer will end up cheaper than attempting a repair (especially with an older model). If that’s the case we can still suggest a good replacement model, help with recovering your data if the old unit isn’t working, and help transfer the data to your new unit (whether it’s one we purchase, or one you’ve picked up yourself).

On the other hand if the repair is worthwhile we might suggest a RAM or other upgrade while it’s in the shop – that can often give you a boost in speed, and we can clean out the internal components at the same time. That kind of upgrade can be great value in the long run, because with a faster (cooler running) computer you won’t need to upgrade it quite so soon.

Photos of Dave De-Dusting an Overheating Laptop.

Most laptops suck air from underneath to keep themselves cool. Using a laptop on a bed or other soft surface can cause them to suck in dust, which clogs the cooling system. Symptoms include the laptop overheating quickly and shutting down. Eventually the heat can damage the hard drive.

With this model laptop Dave had to dis-assemble the whole thing to access the cooling fan. He then removes the dust and replaces the thermal paste with artic silver before putting it back together again

Some hardware facts:

Hard Drives

Did you know the average hard drive starts to become unreliable after about 3 years? If your data is very important then 3 years is a good time to think about your hard drive’s upcoming retirement. This is especially true on servers because it’s a much faster (and cheaper) job to replace a hard drive before it fails. Of course if your computer is approaching this age it’s essential to have reliable backups in place. Sometimes you are lucky enough to hear a hard drive start to click just before it fails.

Power Supplies

Power Supplies are another part we replace frequently. When a computer’s Power Supply starts to fail it will often slow the computer down, eventually preventing it from booting up all together – but like a car battery, it’s actually a very cheap part to replace.

Overheating Computer or Laptop

Cooling systems also start to fail after a while – fans get clogged with dust and the cooling paste becomes less effective, which causes the computer to run hotter and hotter over time. As you can imagine the extra heat isn’t good for the life expectancy of your more expensive (very delicate) computer parts, and if it overheats badly enough it can destroy them outright. It’s rather like having a faulty or clogged radiator in your car. For clients with computers in very dusty environments it’s helpful to have regular services on your cooling system, just like getting a service on your car – it can prolong the life of the computer and keep it running at its best.

Overheating symptomsto watch out for can include a noisy or constantly running fan, extra heat when you put your hand on the computer or laptop. The computer can also slow down or have intermittent ‘virus like’ issues as the temperature affects performance. As with power supplies these parts are surprisingly cheap, and de-dusting is something we do routinely for computers that we upgrade or service.

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